Yahoo back in black

Posted on 11 Jul 2002 at 11:52

Internet portal Yahoo has reported a $21.4 million profit on sales of $225.8 million for the second quarter of this year. This is the first quarter Yahoo has made money since the end of 2000.

The company puts the turnaround down to weaning itself away from the still-sickly online advertising market and concentrating more towards paid-for services such as 'enhanced' email and personal ads. It has also made big gains in paid-for search listings and revenues from the acquisition of online recruitment company 'HotJobs'. The company says that it now has around a million paying customers - up from around 600,000 in the last quarter.

The outlook is for more of the same. In a statement Susan Decker, the chief financial officer for Yahoo! Inc, said, 'We continue to seek new ways to provide deeper value to our vast consumer base, and we are also attempting to build greater revenue, margins and returns from that core asset.' In other words, Yahoo is looking to make more from its paying customers.